


5 Times Bucky Didn't Tell Him (and the one time Steve beat him to the punch)

by missbip0lar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 Times, Anal Fingering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Frottage, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:10:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1929666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbip0lar/pseuds/missbip0lar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes is 15 the first time his best friend's hand on his arm feels different than it should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Times Bucky Didn't Tell Him (and the one time Steve beat him to the punch)

**Author's Note:**

> For Jessica. You know why.
> 
> edit: it's been brought to my attention that there are some slight anachronisms present in this work (whoops); namely, steve's asthma medication. inhaler's weren't available until the 1950s and well, you know. so i'll be doing some research to see how i can fix that realistically. really though, for the couple of people who let me know - thank you uwu

I.

Bucky Barnes is 15 the first time his best friend's hand on his arm feels different than it should.

He doesn't have a name for it, this subtle current beneath his skin where Steve's fingertips ( _artist's fingers_ ) brush his forearm to draw his attention to the mangy cat being cornered in an alley by three boys holding twine and aluminum cans. The sensation catches Bucky so completely off-guard that he doesn't have time to tell Steve "Don't you dare" before the little guy is puffing up his chest and marching straight into that alley to to defend the scraggly looking animal. The cat is spitting mad, just as likely to tear Steve apart as the three boys - a year or two their senior - that are sneering at the gutsy little punk who is too dumb to just let it happen.

The cat ends up running off without a scratch. Steve and Bucky, not so much.

The sensation lingers, and Bucky says nothing.

II.

The first time Bucky catches himself wondering what it'd be like to hold Steve - to _really_ hold him, like he should want with some dame - he's 17 and it's the dead of winter, and Steve is in the throes of the worst asthma attack so far this year.

Money's been hard to come by for everyone this year, and with Sarah in the TB ward the prescription for Steve's inhaler hasn't been filled yet. So it's the middle of the night and Steve's cough and erratic breathing has woken Bucky up and they're sitting back to chest on the bedroom floor. Bucky's got his back against the wall, his legs on either side of Steve's slight frame, and his palm spread over Stevie's chest to coax his breaths into evening out.

"Focus on me," he coaches in a whisper, exhaling slowly right beside Steve's ear. "Come on, pal, you can do it. I've got you."

Steve is tense all over but he _tries;_ Bucky can feel the way he's forcing himself to breathe deep, the way his fingers curl tightly into the fabric of Bucky's sleep pants to ground himself. And _God_ but Bucky feels so guilty, savoring the feeling of Steve's back pressed against his chest. He can feel the heat of Steve's winter fever burning through the thin cotton of their undershirts, wonders if Steve will get pneumonia again this year - if it'll be the _last_ time he gets pneumonia. Eventually Steve's breathing rights itself, and he's wracked with shivers and drenched in a cold sweat. Neither of them moves for some time, and Steve's head lolls back to rest on Bucky's shoulder.

"Thank you, Buck," he sighs, bringing his hand up to lace his fingers with the ones still spread across his chest.

Bucky doesn't say anything, and tries to not let the guilt consume him.

III.

The first time Bucky wakes to the hard line of Steve's morning erection pushed against his rear end and feels a jolt of arousal at the realization, it's the morning after Sarah's fucking _funeral,_ and Bucky's body literally could not have picked a worse time to well and truly notice and catalog exactly how amazing Steve's cock feels when it's this hot and hard as a rock against his clothed skin. Bucky has to scramble out from beneath their shared sheet to the bathroom before he makes a fool of himself; he strips his briefs there and wraps a shaky hand around his own arousal. He's experimented by now, has found all the places in their neighborhood where men can go to inconspicuously seek out the company of other men.

Bucky knows now, as much as he hates himself for it, what a man's mouth feels like suckling his cock, knows what it's like to come inside a waiting mouth while calloused fingers twist into his body to strike again and again at _something_ deep within him, curling his toes while he spills thick and hot and completely undone. He carries that knowledge with him now as he tugs at his cock in the privacy of their bathroom, thinks of what it would be like to let little Stevie pin him down, settle between his spread thighs and just _take._ He reluctantly allows his mind to wander further, envisions Steve straddling him, seated on his cock and bouncing like he can't get Bucky deep enough while his own erection bobs between them. And that's it, that's the fantasy that tips Bucky over the edge in a white-hot haze.

When he returns to their makeshift bed in the living room afterward, Steve is just beginning to stir, his brow furrowing as he comes into consciousness and remembers why he's pillowed against the cushions of Bucky's ratty old couch in a mockery of their childhood sleepovers.

Bucky resigns himself to feeling like the shittiest best friend in the world, but he doesn't say anything.

IV.

The first time Bucky is legitimately tempted to take Steve's face in his hands and find out what his tongue tastes like, they're sitting in a movie theater for the first time in years. They've been saving pennies for what seems like months, and still were a few cents short when Bucky left for work this morning. But Stevie, God love him, sold some of his drawings for two cents apiece and now they're watching Dorothy go over the rainbow with a lapful of snacks each.

Steve watches the screen like a catatonic, and doesn't even tear his eyes away as he shovels handful after handful of buttery popcorn into his mouth. Bucky, for his part, can't take his eyes off of Steve. He's enraptured by the light in Stevie's eyes, the way he laughs at the brainless Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion, and when Steve turns his head to meet Bucky's eye neither of them can stop the stupid grins that spread across their faces.

Steve throws a single kernal of popcorn at him, laughing when it hits Bucky square between the eyes. _This would be the perfect moment,_ Bucky thinks, to press his lips to Steve's and lick the salt and butter from his tongue until he feels his best friend melt beneath the kiss.

But Bucky wouldn't wish those feelings on Steve in a hundred years. He's too damn good for it, for the filth and depravity that Bucky fantasizes about now on a daily basis.

So Bucky doesn't kiss him, and doesn't say anything.

V.

It's the fall of 1940 and the rest of the world is at war, and it's only a matter of time now before the US joins the fight. Bucky registered for the draft last month, because the law said he had to, and if that's not a sure sign that America has its guard up then Bucky doesn't know what is. He's dead scared, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the United States to join the allied forces and throw the country into the war, for his numbers to come up. Because they will, and when they do who will look after Steve? Steve'll be denied enlistment for any number of the medical conditions he's been cursed with, and his fury will be righteous because he is so so willing to fight for his country, for the freedom he believes in, and it's just not fair on either of them. Bucky wouldn't mind going to war, honestly, if it weren't for Steve. It's been hardwired into his brain at this point; protect Steve, get him through the winter, pick him up from the pavement in the alleys he gets himself beat up in.

Keep Steve Rogers safe at all costs.

But how? If his numbers come up and he has to go fight in a war that has nothing to do with him or Steve or his country, _how_ is he supposed to keep Steve safe, healthy, _alive?_

The fear claws at him every single day, warring with those feelings for his best friend that he's kept bottled up for eight fucking years now. That fear and that warmth in his chest that he's finally found a name for ( _love - shut up, you idiot, you're not **allowed** to love him_ ), they eat him up from the inside and he wishes to God he wasn't the way that he is. He prays and prays and prays, convinced that the God he had so much faith in has abandoned humanity for good now - has abandoned _him_ and left him to sort out his perversions on his own. And it's _not fucking fair_ that he should be so overwhelmed by blond hair and blue eyes and eyelashes that go on for days and a sharp tongue that's oftentimes more trouble that it's worth.

And Steve. 

Steve is completely oblivious to the war going on inside his best friend's mind. He is so focused on the actual war - on Hitler and the Nazis and the concentration camps sprouting up all over Europe - that he's blessedly blind to Bucky's depravity. He doesn't bat an eye when Bucky goes out on Saturday nights to the fairy bars, doesn't notice the smell of some guy's aftershave or leftover cigar smoke clinging to his clothes when he comes home absolutely _hating_ himself for how much he loves it.

It's the fall of 1940 and the world is at war. James Buchanan Barnes is fighting a war of his own, but he doesn't say anything.

VI.

The other shoe does drop, in the form of Japanese bombs in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

They're together, at least, when they hear the news. It's an art class in the city that they can barely afford, that Steve signed them up for so they can get out of the apartment once in awhile and do something that doesn't include drinking and "having to watch you dance with pretty girls all night" Steve had said. There's a little radio in the classroom that plays soft jazz music while they work, but today the music is interrupted by the news of Pearl Harbor. Steve's eyes snap up to meet Bucky's over their easels, and there's a fire in them that Bucky both admires and dreads; he can practically read Steve's mind now, sees the renewed determination to throw his goddamn life away because _now,_ now they've attacked _home._

Class is dismissed early, of course it is, and Steve drags Bucky to the recruitment office, where the line of men looking to enlist extends out the door. Bucky refuses to enlist and the fire in Steve's eyes is tinted now with rage, and Bucky leaves him there to get denied while he trudges back to apartment to await Steve's inevitable wrath.

He comes into the apartment later like a hurricane of righteous fury, a bright red 4F stamped across his crumpled enlistment papers.

"You're a goddamn _coward,_ James Barnes!" are the first words out of Steve's mouth after he slams the door.

"And you're a fucking fool!" Bucky counters, his own anger ratcheting up and up and up with the dread knotting in the pit of his stomach. "You will die in this war, do you not see that? You'll die and I won't be able to protect you from it!"

"Hitler kills _kids,_ Bucky!" Steve shouts, as if that'll change Bucky's mind. "Can you really sit back and do nothing while some tyrant kills a bunch 'a kids for not being like him?"

"Whatever happens in Europe ain't none of our business!" Bucky fights back. "I'm not about to go over there into a goddamn war zone and leave you here to die this winter. Sorry, Stevie, but you're a helluva lot more important to me than some Jew kid I never met!"

It feels like a confession, like Bucky's just given himself away and told Steve who he really is, but Steve just clenches his jaw and says nothing. He crosses his arms like the petulant little punk he is and turns away.

"You'll never get in, Steve, and I ain't about to leave you," Bucky says, quieter now. "Till the end of the line, remember?"

"You're a jerk," Steve says after a moment, his anger deflating.

Bucky pulls him into a tight hug, buries his nose into Steve's hair and breathes him in before replying, "And you're a fuckin' punk."

Steve clings to him, and if Bucky weren't savoring the feeling as much as he is, he'd notice the embrace is far less platonic than it's been in the past. Steve doesn't pull back to tell Bucky, "You know I'm going to try enlisting again."

Bucky huffs out a laugh. "You wouldn't be you if you didn't."

It isn't until the next day, as Steve and Bucky huddle together beneath a blanket on the couch listening to President Roosevelt's speech on the radio, that the true weight of what happened comes crashing down on them. Over 2,000 of their own are dead. That's not even a number Bucky can truly wrap his head around. It ignites in him a renewed sense of unease; Steve actually _wants_ to fight in this war, wants to go to Europe with a gun and a helmet and put his life on the line and for what? To prove that he can? Fuck that.

It's silent for a few long moments after President Roosevelt's voice fades out, and Bucky breaks the silence to plead with Steve, "Please don't do this."

"Why not?" Steve asks, and Bucky can hear the quiet strength in his voice, knows he's fighting a losing battle here.

"Because I don't know who I am without you," Bucky admits. "I can't let you throw your life away, I can't let you go startin' fights you can't finish in another country where I can't have your back."

"So come with me," Steve begs right back. "I don't wanna go over there without you, Buck, but you know I will if I have to."

Bucky sighs. "If you can come home with a 1A on your enlistment papers," he offers, "I'll go right over to the recruitment office, all right?"

Steve's smile is a little melancholy, and his eyes don't leave Bucky's. There's... something there, a new tension that Bucky can't name, and it's making his heart race and his palms sweat and for a split second he thinks Steve's going to kiss him but why would he? Bucky's the queerie of the two of them, not Steve, but there's a blush creeping up Steve's cheeks to the tips of his ears, and he drops his gaze to the floor before clearing his throat to say something. 

"Buck, I gotta tell you somethin' before I explode, all right?" Steve says hurriedly, like if he doesn't say whatever he's got to say now he never will. "I hope you don't judge me for it, but..." he shakes his head and takes a deep breath, doesn't meet Bucky's eye. "I mean with everything that happened yesterday, everything that's going to start happening, I can't just let it go anymore. When the bad gets worse you gotta tell the people in your life you love that you love 'em, and well... I've never loved anyone the way I love you, Buck."

Bucky Barnes is about ninety-eight percent certain his heart's just stopped. He doesn't want to hope that Steve means what he thinks he means, but the faith he thought he'd lost is blossoming in his chest again and he can feel a smile turning up the corners of his lips. 

"You confessin' your love for me, Rogers?" Bucky teases, but it comes out shaky, unsure, and completely transparent. 

Steve lifts his head and looks Bucky in the eye, raising a defiant eyebrow and smirking at him like Bucky just made his day. "Maybe I am, Barnes, you gonna do somethin' about it?"

And that's all it takes; Bucky captures the lips he's been dreaming about for almost ten years now, learns the shape and taste of them and it's like he's died and gone to heaven. And _Steve, God,_ it's like he was made to kiss Bucky. Steve bites at his lips with the right amount of pressure, licks into his mouth at _exactly_ the right time, and even climbs into Bucky's lap just as he's starting to wonder why it hasn't happened yet.

Steve breaks the kiss off to shove the blanket off of them and grind his hips down at just the right angle to bring their cocks together through the fabric of their pants. Bucky's reaction is almost violent in its intensity, his fingers gripping Steve's hips as he thrusts sharply upward in search of more friction.

Steve throws his head back and gasps. "This is working out better than I thought it would," he says.

"Shut the hell up and kiss me again." And Steve complies.

He tastes better than Bucky expected; he tastes like a drug that Bucky would succumb to even if he'd been knocked on the head and didn't know his own name.

He tastes like home.

Steve's fingers work like lightning at their belts and pants, reaching into Bucky's trousers to pull the dripping length from its confines before releasing his own hard cock as well. They're still kissing as Steve takes Bucky in hand and swipes his thumb across the leaking head of him to moisten the tip and Bucky groans into Steve's open mouth. Steve's own erection is bumping against Bucky's stomach and Bucky reaches between them to close a fist around Steve's length. Steve's hand stills for a split second as he allows himself a shudder and a quiet moan, and then they're stroking each other in unison, their kisses put on hold as they simply breathe into each other's mouths.

" _God,_ " Bucky hears himself gasp. "Where in the hell did you learn all this?"

Steve doesn't answer, just smiles at him and twists his wrist on the next upstroke to pull an honest-to-god _whine_ from the back of Bucky's throat.

"Everything I know I learned from watching you," Steve confesses eventually. "Watched you kiss all those dames, walked in on you doin' this to yourself a few times, too."

Bucky releases his hold on Steve's cock to maneuver them into a different position, and once Steve's on his back on the couch he strips him of his pants, throws Steve a wicked grin and asks, "Can I teach you somethin' else?"

Bucky only waits so long to see Steve nod before he's taking his cock in his mouth, sucking Steve down as far as his mouth will let him, and Steve's hips lift of their own free will off the sofa. It chokes Bucky a little, but he recovers like he's done it a million times, tonguing the head and hollowing out his cheeks and Steve's hands are in his hair, guiding Bucky's head exactly where he wants it. Steve tastes incredible here, too. He's leaking a little and it's so strange; silky and salty and bitter and sweet and so completely _Steve_ that it's almost overwhelming. He makes these quiet, abortive little noises like he wants to moan outright but knows he shouldn't, and it only makes Bucky determined to coax more sounds out of him, to get him loud enough so Bucky has to stop, has to tell him to quiet down or the neighbors'll hear. He pulls his mouth off Steve with a wet pop and swipes his hand across his lips before getting up from the couch.

Steve looks downright _offended,_ and Bucky kisses him with a chuckle, says, "Wait right here, I need to get somethin' out of the bedroom. It'll be worth it," he promises, and quickly goes to the bedroom in search of the tub of Vaseline he bought for himself. 

Steve's entire body is tense, like a snake waiting to strike, and Bucky uncaps the Vaseline and coats two fingers on his left hand before getting back into position. 

"Do you trust me?" he asks, licking Steve's erection from base to tip. Steve gives him an odd look but nods anyway. Bucky starts slow, spreading Vaseline over his hole and watching Steve's reaction. He looks a little apprehensive, like he's expecting an explanation, so Bucky gives him one: "There's this spot," he whispers, "inside. If you touch it when you're hard it's like... I don't know. It's like nothin' I ever felt before, you'll love it Stevie. Do you trust me?" 

"Yeah," he breathes, relaxing enough for Bucky's finger to slide inside him with little resistance. Steve's breaths are coming quicker now, and Bucky feels he should be worried, should be searching out Steve's inhaler, but Steve rolls his hips and urges him to keep going, so that's just what Bucky does.

It's a little awkward, a little fumbling, and both their erections are starting to flag, but Bucky takes Steve into his mouth again and he's rock hard again in seconds. Bucky twists his hand, crooks his finger a little and Steve's breath punches out of him with a strangled, " _Ohhh,_ " and that's how Bucky knows he's found it. He keeps it up, rubbing the pad of his finger over that spot over and over and over again until Steve's loosened up enough to take a second finger. He presses it in beside the first and curbs the burn by rubbing over that spot again almost immediately. Steve's voice is coming a little more freely now, his moans growing in both volume and intensity, and his hand never leaves Bucky's hair as he thrusts up into Bucky's throat. Bucky's learning quick, too, relaxing his throat to swallow around Steve in an attempt to make him cuss. It ends up working.

"Ah, Buck, for _Chrissakes,_ how the fuck are you doing that?"

Bucky doesn't respond, mostly because Steve's always told him it's rude to talk with his mouth full, but he does offer up a moan in return. He chances a glance up to where Steve's head is pillowed on the arm of the sofa and drinks him in; face flushed, mouth hanging open, free hand gripping the cushion like if he doesn't he'll fly away - it's the most beautiful thing Bucky has ever seen. He pulls his mouth from around Steve's cock and tells him as much.

"You're so gorgeous," he slurs, and he feels drunk, intoxicated by the taste of Steve on his tongue and the sight of him burnt into his retinas.

Steve meets his eyes, smiles at him, slurs back, "You, too. You should see how wet your mouth is. Don't stop, please," and Bucky goes back down willingly, taking Steve to the hilt and thrusting his fingers with renewed conviction. 

Steve doesn't take his eyes off Bucky and Bucky doesn't take his eyes off Steve and it feels like they are at an impasse, like Bucky's gotta do something else to put that last nail in Steve's coffin and hurtle him over the edge. So he moves his mouth lower, suckling at Steve's balls before shooting him a questioning look as he laps at the skin just behind, and Steve sees the intent in his eyes and nods his consent, and then Bucky's spreading his fingers inside Steve. The first flick of his tongue over the stretched skin makes Steve clench and cry out, and Bucky has to laugh a little, has to gently shush him before going right back to it, flicking his tongue over that place where his fingers disappear into Steve's body again again and again. And then he's dipping his tongue just barely inside while the digits penetrating him rub slow circles over that spot deep inside Steve, and the little punk is nearly reduced to tears now; he is trembling, babbling incoherent curses, begging for Bucky to put his mouth on his cock again, and _fuck,_ Bucky could probably come untouched just listening to this, but he wraps his free hand around his own dick anyway, strokes slow and sure and squeezes himself just hard enough to get him close while his tongue does filthy, _filthy_ things to Steve's asshole - things he should feel ashamed of doing because _this is sodomy,_ it's everything they've been taught is wrong and evil and will basically guarantee them both a one-way ticket to Satan's front door. But they're both fucking _loving it,_ groaning loud enough for the neighbors to hear, so so close to the most intense orgasm either of them has ever experienced, and literally nothing else exists but them and their cocks and Steve's hole - there's no war, no looming threat of dying overseas with guns in their hands - there is only Steve and Bucky and the pleasure they are finding in each other.

" _Please,_ " Steve nearly sobs, "I'm so -"

And Bucky obliges him, pulls his mouth away from Steve's ass and swallows him down again, and the babbling starts up once more. All Bucky hears is a gasped out, "I'm gonna -" and he tightens his lips, swirls his tongue, grinds the pads of his fingers against that marvelous little gland inside Steve, and then Steve is shooting stream after stream of hot sticky come into his mouth. Just the taste, the knowledge that _I made that happen,_ is enough to have Bucky following Steve and emptying himself over his hands and onto the couch cushions (that will now need to be flipped to hide the stain, go figure). Bucky swallows all he can, wipes the excess away from the corner of his mouth and wipes his hand on the side of the couch, before moving up the couch to capture Steve's lips again.

Steve is panting afterward, and his inhaler is within arms reach - thank God - so he takes a few puffs before settling back onto the couch as Bucky slowly withdraws his fingers from him. Steve is pliant through the aftershocks, and they kiss lazily.

"I can taste -" Steve mumbles.

"Uh huh," Bucky replies, kissing him again. "Isn't it great?"

"You're great," Steve says.

"Punk." It comes out as a laugh.

"Jerk." It's a sigh.

They kiss again. The war can wait. This is all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> [come cry with me on tumblr](http://notvvithoutyou.tumblr.com) about gentle top!bucky, oversensitized bottom!steve, and the bionic arm fetish you will only reluctantly admit to. *throws confetti*


End file.
